Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment

Capital punishment, also referred to as the death penalty, is a judicially ordered execution of a prisoner, as a punishment for a serious crime to preserve justice for society. Some jurisdictions that practice capital punishment restrict its use to a small number of criminal offenses, mainly treason and murder. In recent years in the United States, these have also included killings that occur during the course of some other violent felony, such as robbery or rape. Prisoners who have been sentenced to death are usually kept isolated from other prisoners in a special part of the prison pending their execution. In some places this segregated area is known as "Death Row."

The death penalty goes back as far as the Roman Law. Death sentences were carried out by such means as crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement. Today there are several methods of execution. The most popular is electrocution, which uses the electric chair was developed in the late 1880�s,also there is lethal injection and the gas chamber. The first known execution in the United States of America was of Daniel Frank, put to death in 1622 in the Colony of Virginia for the crime of theft. Since then, the death penalty has almost always been a feature of the criminal justice system. Have you ever heard of the saying “An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”? Is it justice to kill when the law states, “Thou shall not kill” ? Should the one that killed punishment is to be killed? There are two viewpoints on capital punishment. People who are in favor of capital punishment and the people who are not in favor of capital punishment.

People in favor of capital punishment feels that it is ethical for several reasons. One reason capital punishment is ethical is that it grants reasonable retribution. This is where eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth comes to light. Retribution is ,somewhat, having the right to punish the wrongdoer and to see the harm done to them to a degree equal to or greater than which he/she inflicted upon the victim. For example, Timothy McVeigh , he detonated a bomb in a community building destroying almost two hundred human being. Among those, were children who didn’t even have a chance to live or even enjoy their lives. No penalty can begin to repair the damage that he has done, but anything less than the death penalty would be an outrage not only to the victim but the family that lost their loves ones. It is a declaration that someone who committed such crime is unworthy to have the right to live. No crime is comparable to murder.

Another reason it is ethical is that it is necessary. The death penalty is a matter of justice and equality it may have influence on potential criminals. Human being are free moral agent. They can make choices and they ought to be held responsible for the moral choices they make. A mother loses her child to a heinous crime. Her daughter and a friend walks home from school and runs into a gang. They were both raped orally, anally, and vaginally. The gang members laughed as they strangled the girls with belts and shoelaces, stomped and beat the girls to death. Their dreams disappeared as their life diminished slowly from their broken bodies. Their parents heart-broken as they visited their empty rooms. The murder of the innocent is undeserved. The punishment of murders has been earned by the pain and suffering, they imposed on their victims. You wouldn’t give a person five or ten years for a crime like this, that is why it is capital punishment is necessary to protect people. The death penalty won’t bring back their loved ones but justice is prevailed.

The final reason why capital punishment is ethical moral permissible. No one should deliberately and intentionally take another’s life. The more severe a crime is, the more severe the penalty is on those who truly deserve it. If human lives are to be risked, the risk should fall more heavily on wrong-doers than on the innocent. Murder is the worst crime, therefore it should have the severest penalty. If we do not have capital punishment then there is a risk on innocent person that a convicted murderer released from prison may kill again. The government should act as “ministers of God” in distributing justice. Does the biblical statement that states “vengeance is the Lord’s” gives the state moral license to execute murderers?

On the other hand, people not in favor of capital punishment feels that it is unethical for several reasons. The first reason is that it does not grant reasonable retribution. All punishment by nature is retributive, not only the death penalty. For instance, a man cuts off another man’s leg, is it right for the police to cut off the criminal leg just because he cut off the victim’s leg. Let’s say, a woman was raped by a teenager, who you consider having the teenager raped too. Equal punishment does not mean that the punishment should be exactly like the crime. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never partaking in the taking of a human life. There is nothing that could be accomplished in the loss of one life being answered with the loss of another. Revenge may bring momentary satisfaction, but only the potential to reach into someone broken heart can bring healing. We can’t be a civilized society while indulging in hatred and the ability not to forgive. Punishment can be expressed in equivalence rather than the same form of crime committed.

The second reason capital punishment is unethical is that it harms society. When the death penalty is used, it brutalize society not make our lives safer. Capital punishment only sends the misguided message to members of the society that killing already- incarcerated criminal can somehow solve the problem of violence in American life. The death penalty is just another form of violence. A study commissioned by the New York Times examined FBI data and found that death-penalty states’ average murder rates consistently exceeded those of non-death penalty states. America’s death-penalty states have higher homicide rates then the non-death-penalty states. If America is to have a safer society, it must stop seeing the death penalty as a “crime-fighting” tool. Capital punishment is just another form of violence in our society.

The third reason capital punishment is unethical because its immoral. The death penalty is immoral because it rejects the sanctity of human life. All life, even life someone who has committed murder is sacred. Hatred and revenge